Columbia, Mo. SWAT Drug Raids Drop – Thanks To You!

If you are one of the many people that showed your friends, co-workers, and family the video of Columbia, Mo. SWAT officers raiding the home of Jonathan Whitworth and shooting his dogs immediately after kicking in the door, then you helped make a real difference for the people of Columbia and elsewhere.

This is a wonderful example of how information-sharing and public pressure can have a direct impact on the unjust and violent policies of the war on drugs. We have the power to change things for the better, and we have to use it. Simply sharing videos is not enough, however. We need to consistently engage anyone and everyone on the issues arising from the prohibition of marijuana, and keep doing so until the truth is impossible to ignore. This is a good start!

The so-called “War On Drugs” isn’t a war on drugs, it’s a war on marijuana. And more specifically, it’s not a war on marijuana, it’s a war on stoners, on heads, on people that use reefer: YOU and ME – peaceful, job holding, tax paying, otherwise law abiding citizens.

“Booze is GOOD and reefer is BAD”: that’s the message that’s been pushed on Americans for the past several decades, and mainstream America has drunk the kool-aid.

This is excellent news, but I truly feel the “message” sent by NOT sanctioning, even suspending or FIRING, the offending officers has been watered-down..Wasn’t it not very long ago that overzealous “agents”, in a “DYNAMIC ENTRY” od their own- smelled someone smokin weed, busted-down a man’s door, SHOT THE MAN-then yelled, GET DOWN!~No one was even reprimanded for that…..what ever happened there? I heard NOTHING about it after the incident. Law-enforcement’s attitude of Cannabis users as a group seeems to be they’re afraid. Of WHAT, I’m not sure, but I can’t rationalize this behavior in any other way than to say the REASON THE DEA EXISTS IS TO ERADICATE WEED. Have you heard of them doing ANYTHING else? ……just sayin…

That viral vid kinda annoys me. So many stories of PEOPLE being killed, or beaten, or their right violated by corrupt law enforcement fail to generate nearly the same inerest of 1 video of a DOG being shot. Can’t argue with results tho.

1. US government policy, including the military (over 50% of all military worldwide) and law-enforcement (over 20% of all world’s prisoners) is to large extent ruled by Big 2WackGo which fears cannabis liberalization because the disappearance of laws against cannabis will de facto legalize what the $igarette industry fears most: Downdosage Equipment such as vaporizers, e-cigarettes (nicotine or cannabinoid flavor), 25-mg.-“one-hitters”– anything which breaks the stranglehold of Compulsory Overdose 700-mg. hot burning $igarettes “whence cometh their profit margin”– thus must be suppressed under some handy excuse such as that it is “drug paraphernalia” (paranoia infernal alien) used with illegal cannabis.

3. Some parallels: would-be cannabis-legalizers are today’s equivalent of the Abolitionists who fought Slavery until 1865, and anti-cannabis “Drug Laws” are today’s equivalent of the Fugitive Slave Laws (“the New Jim Crow”). It was illegal to help a Negro slave escape to “free soil” in Cannada or Cannecticut, and today it’s illegal to use Cannabis to help a Nicotine slave escape a hot burning overdose $igarette habit (or help a youngster escape getting hooked in the first place, which is prosecuted as a crime worse than pedophilia, meanwhile 900,000 American children are being “mentored” into $igarette addiction each year.)

Jesus said to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. None of us would want our child thrown in jail with the sexual predators over a little marijuana. It’s time to let ordinary Americans grow a little marijuana in their own back yards.

@TXGrandma420: I think they’ll still video tape it from time to time. Afterall, they’re dumb enough to believe that pot is a horrific drug worthy of killing people over it, they’re dumb enough to keep recording the raids.

I’ve lost all respect for law enforcement. Not because I think all cops are bad — they’re not all bad. But because the cops have lost the ability to police themselves. You never see bad cops rooted out of law enforcement or punished when they commit atrocities. It’s just the opposite. When cops break the law and trample on our constitutional rights, they are instantly surrounded by the protection of their superiors, prosecutors, judges and politicians. It seems obvious at this point that the corruption of public offices is total. Criminals and moral degenerates are running the country. It is good to see the public finally starting to speak out and use its power to change this nightmare.

MPP…. Where is your news on Russia? They get cannabis for everyone over 18. Grand opening in June. Where is your news on Canada? They say cannabis laws are unconstitutional. But we are fed shit by our gov’t..

Maybe these poor soldiers are as fed up as we are with the insanity. The “leak” of this video in the first place looks like a cry for help. How would you like it if the laws we set up demand(by protocol) that they do these raids in the first place. We force them to kill, with poorly thought through laws and protocols.

We declare (without justification) that marijuana is a schedule 1 narcotic. Since it is by definition the most heinous substance known to man, we have to: Serve any and all warrants (even in jurisdictions that decriminalize possesion of pot) with SWAT teams, this has to be done in the middle of the night to protect the officers, They MUST shoot anything that moves too fast (even people and pets react with sudden movement when doors are kicked in during rem sleep) again to protect the innocent officers. Sorry, the zero tolerence era folks thought they were helping but they didn’t think this through.

This is a bad time in the history of the United States when federal government are testing their limits by attacking homes and violating the rights of citizens over a political law. The creation of the Control Substance Act of 1970 and its animosities toward marijuana are both purely political.

The Federal Government claims that marijuana is dangerous and has no medical value. The Government in Washington spends roughly 50 billion a year to maintain this fiction. Sixteen states now have laws providing for the medical use of marijuana. The President has promised not to allow the Drug Enforcement Administration to raid medical marijuana facilities in states that have medical marijuana laws provided the facilities are compliant with state law. The Veterans Administration has an official policy on medical marijuana. The new official policy stops a long standing unwritten practice of withholding treatment from veterans who test positive for marijuana. Under the new policy the VA will no longer withhold treatment but only in states that have medical marijuana laws. The old policy as written left the decision up to the individual doctor even though that was not done in practice. The Federal Government is still filling monthly prescriptions for medical marijuana from it’s Mississippi facility to patients left over from the old Investigational Drug / Compassionate Care Program. That program provided medical marijuana to patients with certain conditions. When it was swamped with applicants from people suffering from Hiv/Aids, President H. W. Bush, in a disappointing show of indifference to suffering, killed the program instead of opening it up to more people. Patients already enrolled in the program sued in court and the Government has been providing their medical marijuana ever since. In addition to this, the 10 year old petition to reschedule marijuana to allow it to be prescribed by a doctor is only awaiting approval by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The Government’s official positions on medical marijuana are in direct conflict. That the Federal Government should maintain the fiction that there is no such thing as medical marijuana boggles the mind and should be a source of embarrassment to the entire government. This position deserves as much ridicule as the Catholic Church declaring that Galileo did not see what he saw and that the Sun still revolves around the Earth.
Medical marijuana is a fact. Marijuana is effective in alleviating the symptoms of many diseases and conditions. Marijuana is particularly effective in controlling neuropathic pain, the kind of pain that results from crushed spines and severed limbs. Marijuana is also reported by many who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress to have provided them with , ’the best nights sleep since the incident’. Medical marijuana is perfectly suited for treating suffering of our battle scarred veterans.
The Federal Government currently has in place a system that could easily provide medical marijuana to the Veterans Administration pharmacy system with little problem.
The amount of suffering endured by Veterans who, having been fortunate to survive their service, must now carry on with a lifetime of pain and disability cannot be calculated. We have the medicine and the ability to alleviate much of this suffering. As a nation that owes it’s very existence to the sacrifice and valor of it’s veterans it is unconscionable to allow their suffering to continue. The policy of marijuana prohibition has proven a failure. Now, it has come to this choice. Do we allow the continued suffering of those we owe everything to, or admit our course is wrong and act accordingly. those who have given all await the compassion of the Government. How will it answer them?

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The opinions expressed by our viewers and posters do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Marijuana Policy Project. These views are those of their individual authors alone. MPP does not condone or support the illegal use of marijuana. We do encourage open and frank discussion, but if a comment has been posted that is in some way significantly inappropriate, please email us at [email protected] to report it. Thank you, and we're looking forward to what you think!

"I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol. If people can go into a liquor store and buy a bottle of alcohol and drink it at home legally, then why do we say that the use of this other substance is somehow criminal?"
Pat Robertson, Chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, The New York Times, March 7, 2012